


Autopilot

by holographic_meatloaf



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003)
Genre: If we're all processing our emotional trauma then who's flying the plane, Post-Good Genes, incest shippers keep scrolling, proof that quarantine does not equal productivity, seriously dont bother I ain't playin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:41:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22985752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holographic_meatloaf/pseuds/holographic_meatloaf
Summary: In the heat of the moment, these things were easy to store away. But now that Donatello was back, it came time for Raphael to grapple with questions he wasn't sure he wanted the answers to. (Good Genes Fallout)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

The ride back to New York was tense, to say the least.

It started simply enough, at a certain point all the chaos and explosions fade into the distance along with the worn landscape, and though yet another daring last minute escape should have left him absolutely flushed with exhilaration, Raphael couldn’t even warm himself with the comfortable kindling of rage. Instead, he shivered when he felt Donatello’s bare arm slide off of his shoulders as he pulled away to attempt standing on his own. He was too numb to stop him.

Raph tried to be irritated, he really did. At least then it would fill the pit in his stomach with some form of normalcy, but he couldn’t find it within himself to even scold Don for his ever-obstinate disposition, much less be angry with him after-…at a time like this. He watched as Donatello steadied himself, expression creased like it was some scientific anomaly splayed out on his desk just to be back in the body that belonged to him. He rested a hand against the side of the helicopter and hummed thoughtfully, but it was flaccid and course and hollow, and if he had snarled it would have been a more welcome sound because maybe then he wouldn’t feel so utterly useless if he dragged Bishop’s lifeless corpse through the dirt…

No, that wasn’t true. He’d never ask Donnie to suffer on his behalf so he could enact some ill-thought-out retribution…Though he supposed no matter what he did or tried to do it would always come back to this. He knew he had messed up and messed up bad, but Don being Don with a heart big enough to forgive anyone but himself wouldn’t allow him to lose sleep over it, even if it kept him awake at night.

So he let Master Splinter scold him, lecture him, let Leonardo tease him about how much of a rotten influence he was and just pretended it would make up the difference. Even though Donnie was smart enough to know better, he would smile regardless in a way that made the world fall into place, and Raph found himself taking refuge in it from time to time because it was one of the few things in his life he didn’t have to fight to keep. After that, nothing seemed to matter much so long as they were able to bail each other out at the end of the day. Don with his brain and bottomless bag of tricks and him with his…him. Sometimes that was enough, but other times…

“…Mine?” Donatello asked no one in particular, and the sudden onslaught of eyes on him prodded him to elaborate. “Is this the…?” He fumbled a bit on his words, and knocked on the interior of the helicopter to illustrate what he could not articulate, but its forceful nature did not go unnoticed. Raphael hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until a raspy reply tumbled out of his mouth.

“Yeah, Donnie. The one you were working on, remember?”

Awareness seemed to percolate slowly, but Don settled into it comfortably, eyes lighting up in a diminutive sense of pride at having come to a conclusion on his own despite his recent… _lapses_ in the thought department...Though what ultimately struck him is that, up until his display of frustration at least, Don didn’t seem to mind the oblivion all that much; something he thought for sure would eat away at him was the uncertainty that often left its ugly singe on Donatello’s otherwise encyclopedic understanding of the world. It wasn’t uncommon for him to lash out in frustration at the end of several fruitless and sleepless nights, and though he and his brothers gave him flak for it, it was no secret between them why Don’s fear of the dark caused him to burn the proverbial candle at both ends well into the night.

Raphael could relate somewhat, though he made it his own habit to run _with_ it. In his opinion, everything was much easier to forget blending _into_ the chaos in the knowledge that the second he turned against the grain, the fear and confusion would rip him to pieces. So he ran through the dark, too fast for him to make sense of things because that was always Donnie’s job anyways, and occasionally he would run himself in a circle and find his brother at the other end, passed out on top of a pile of papers and spare parts no closer to answers than he was.

It seemed nobody had any answers anymore.

Donatello coughed so suddenly he nearly doubled over, his wheezing amplified in the hollow enclosure. Raph started toward him, but his father was faster, placing an arm around his shoulders to steady him to the best of his ability. Michelangelo winced and looked to Leonardo, who immediately stiffened and exchanged a wary look of his own with Leatherhead. Raph was grateful that no one looked to him in the moment, as he vehemently recited his mantra of profanities just barely under his breath because he was _back, they had got him BACK and he was RIGHT here, but he’s still sick which meant that they could lose him all OVER again-_

The harshness of the echo had been replaced with one much more gentle, yet every bit as breathless, and Raph quickly cut himself off before the noise that rattled around in his head drowned out Don’s muted, but present laughter. He had pushed Splinter off of him, one hand rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly while the other remained firmly in Splinter’s grasp. Despite how embarrassed he appeared, he didn’t fight it.

“I’m alright, Sensei.”

“Donatello, you’re freezing.”

He sighed in defeat, and eyed Raphael in good-natured exasperation, as if he were searching for the remnants of some long-forgotten conversation, but his expression deflated the slightest amount when Raph did not reciprocate. His eyes shone with something he couldn’t place, and he felt a twinge of guilt in spite of himself. But what did he expect? He couldn’t always be on Don’s side, especially when that side was dictated by a compromised-at-best line of reasoning. Master Splinter had good reason to be worried, Don had literally almost died in front of them, didn’t he know that? He may not have understood it at the time, but he had to have _known_. Yet here he stood, openly defiant yet again to the laws of nature he refused to let confine him, as though death itself was as mundane and meaningless as an equation on a page he had yet to crack. It didn’t settle right.

  
It was so frustrating, being so utterly empathetic to one so stubborn. He should really remember to thank Leo for his boundless patience, because if Donatello weren’t so sick Raph would’ve probably thrown him out of the damn helicopter by now.

  
“Ahh…yeah. I was going to just blame it on the altitude but…I don’t even know where we are…” he admitted, and mumbled softly, “Or where we’re going, actually…”

_That didn’t sound good._ Raphael felt the panic seep into his thoughts. Don was more disoriented than he made himself out to be...

  
“Home.” Splinter’s voice cut through the general murmur of unrest. “We are going home, Donatello.”

  
“From where?”

  
At once, Raph and his brothers were on edge, staring at him in disbelief.

  
“…You don’t-?”

  
“Nevada.” Leatherhead spat in distaste, interrupting Leo’s inquiry. Everyone froze in anticipation, but Don, for how alert he made himself look to be, he appeared to sidestep putting two and two together.

  
“…I take it we didn’t come all this way to gamble?” His tone was careful, like he were treading in territory he knew he shouldn’t be, should he find his wild musings to be horribly true. Leatherhead only gave him a small sympathetic smile before his expression hardened.

  
“In a sense, that’s exactly what we did…I knew we should have _never_ trusted Bishop-”

  
“We did what we had to do.” Leonardo was short, and had he not known him his entire life, Raph would have mistaken his subtle aversion for resolute irritation, but he could tell just by looking at him how badly he too wanted to circumvent what was to come. Unfortunately, they were all stuck up here for at least another couple of hours. They’d avoid the elephant in the room about as well as they avoided Karai.

  
The silence that followed spoke volumes, and Don’s face became unreadable as the color proceeded to drain from it. He tried to step back, but his balance failed him so he faltered before Splinter was able to once again steady him with an arm. He reoriented himself but as he planted his body he couldn’t quite root his thoughts, and the look in his eyes was too far away for Raphael to follow him.

  
“Bishop…” he coughed again, but he waved away at the air like it would dissipate any easier than the tension. “Right…then… _the virus_ …”

  
“Total accident, so he says. A side effect.” Raph offered. He knew it probably wouldn’t ease him much, knowing that all it ever boiled down to was Donnie just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he said it anyway, and did his best to ignore the lingering shame that came with knowing it was him who put him there in the first place.

  
Somehow, it accomplished the complete opposite. Don’s whole demeanor darkened in anger so unexpectedly that Splinter had to take a few tentative steps back, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  
“All that suffering…for _nothing_. Those poor people…”

  
He might as well have just opened the door. It felt no different being in here than it would have free-falling from this height with a certain paralyzing weightlessness that came with the transition from unspoken to spoken. He couldn’t imagine Don’s predicament to have been a fun one, to put it mildly, but to actually _hear_ him say it, it absolutely cored him.

  
“What are we even going to _do_? If even Bishop has no idea what’s going on, I-I don’t know how we’ll be able to contain it long enough for Leatherhead and I to find a _cure_.”

  
Everyone immediately stalled. His conviction threw Raph off balance, and any attempt he had previously made to untangle the nightmare he had just lived through scrambled right back up into an angry tight knot. He had half a mind just to rip him a new one for his unconscious habit of making everything needlessly complicated, but Don looked just as lost and confused as the rest of them. The longer the sentiment hung in the air, the more annoyed he became that no one was able to provide him with an adequate response.

  
“Why are you guys-?” A sneeze interrupted him, and he huffed in agitation. _“Why are you guys looking at me like that?”_ His tone was pointed but unsteady, almost defensive. Almost…distressed.

  
The realization crashed into them all simultaneously, and everything violently snapped back into place. He could practically read Leo’s internal monologue through his widened eyes from across the room, and he watched Mikey go absolutely rigid. They all looked to each other in wordless trepidation, and he could feel their exhaustion give way to grim awareness.

  
_He didn’t remember._

  
This was no product of forgetfulness or disorientation. It all made sense but not in a satisfying way, like when the truth rears its ugly head and you can’t turn away anymore. He couldn’t even find solace in the fact that Donnie’s memories of his own suffering were mercifully absent; they loomed overhead and wore him down to nothing more than a miserable pile of shortcomings. Just because he didn’t remember them didn’t mean they didn’t happen. Just because he didn’t remember what dying felt like didn’t mean he didn’t _feel_ it. Just because Raph meant well didn’t change the fact that he had only made things worse like he so often did. One stupid shove in the wrong direction was all it took to render him useless and bare, and had the circumstances been better, maybe he would have blamed his luck and moved on before he had much time to process what it all meant. But as he saw himself reflected against a malformed silhouette through the battered glass of the containment unit, he knew he really had no one to blame but himself.

  
How did they move on from this? There was no sunset to ride off into, just the quiet, uncomfortable stillness of the future that no one wanted to initiate. Much as Raphael wanted to forget the entire mess himself, he wasn’t that optimistic. He couldn’t just plug his ears and press forward like nothing behind him mattered because he had already failed Donatello once, and even then, there was no true progression forward without him anyways. They couldn’t accomplish that with him in the dark. There was never any peace for him there, of that much he knew from experience.

  
_Someone has to tell him._

  
On these occasions in which Don would voice his concerns, he had yet to figure out the right words to convince him to slide the weight of the world off of his shoulders for a little while because they weren’t his strong suit, so he settled for chipping away at it bit by bit with his actions because someone had to repay him. Raph was glad of it, he owed a great deal to Don himself, and he had the crude stitches to prove it. When the world beat him senseless and he tended to follow suit Donatello would still him and shake his head and patch him up regardless of whether or not he felt he deserved it. Don was stubborn like that, and too curious for his own good at times when he found his hands idle; on nights with no bones to set or wounds to wrap, he would grow bored and worm his way beneath the surface like he had always done when he wanted to know what made something tick. And every time Raphael would pretend to resist his prodding, but they both knew that he wouldn’t have sought him out otherwise because he trusted Don to take care of whatever he found no differently than whatever machine he had been pulled away from. Because Donnie was a natural at fixing things, and even better at ignoring the time.

  
So he always tried to repay him the best way he knew how when he was too occupied to protest, because Don, despite what he would argue to the contrary, had a habit of getting himself into trouble, and the fear of losing him drove Raph to plow headfirst into everything if only to keep him from looking back at what could have been. What Don had become.

  
He really tried his best to be there for him, but his best wasn’t good enough. He had missed Donnie so damn _much_ , but now that he had him back he could barely even look up at him, much less look after him.

  
“My son…Bishop…found the cure.” Splinter said slowly, carefully.

  
“What-? Why? _How?”_ Raph grimaced, but thankfully Don left no time for anyone to even attempt answering any of those.

  
“Tell me you swiped a sample or something LH, at least then we’d be able to study it before it gets tested it out on innocent people. Side effect or no, I don’t trust him not to just make everything worse only to put us into a more difficult position…I mean, why else would he just… _help_ us? It doesn’t add up.”

  
“Donnie-” Leo tried to intervene, but Donatello barreled on through, dedicated to his tangent. There was no hope of stopping him, but that was his brother, he supposed. He would do anything to help, even if the tunnel-vision it gave him caused him to slam into more than just the cold, hard truth.

  
“What proof do we have that this cure even works?”

  
_No going back now._

  
“…You, Don.”

And Raph whirled around, stunned. Michelangelo had broken his solemn silence and beat him to it, but he’d be lying if he said this wasn’t a victory he was willing to give him. He offered him a small smile in support, but he only stared apprehensively at Donatello, who had frozen up, his eyes wide in bewilderment. Raphael moved to stand beside Mikey and placed a hand on his shoulder, which he felt him softly squeeze in appreciation, but he never looked away.

  
Don seemed as disoriented as he was when he had first collapsed into Leatherhead, but no longer was he obliviously content to stumble about in the haze that clouded and slowed his thoughts. Rather, everything was far too clear now, with too many thoughts and dots connecting in his mind for him to process that it caused him to breathe too rapidly for him to hide the wheeze in them. He held his head in his hands, but without his mask to obscure it, Raphael could see the immeasurable sadness behind his eyes.

  
“…I don’t…”

  
“Donnie…you _are_ the proof.” Raph attempted to disguise the pain in his voice as exasperation, but Don saw right through him, like always. He looked absolutely horrified, and when he turned to Leatherhead in the expectation that he would elaborate, he only bowed his head and turned away. Evidently that was enough confirmation for Don, as a disgusted sort of resignation crept into his tone despite his last-ditch effort to deny what he could no longer.

  
“That’s… _impossible_. I don’t-I would have-”

  
“What _do_ you remember, Don?”

  
“…Mutations, I think? We were headed to…don’t remember where…was I there?”

  
Leo shook his head. “We dropped you off at April’s because you were too sick to go out-”

  
“But I was _fine_ -”

  
“Donnie, you hurled dude. You _weren’t_ fine.” Donatello’s indignance melted at the unexpected heat of Mikey’s reply, to which he responded in kind, frustration cooling into a gloom that locked him in place again. “…We had no idea…” he mumbled before he once again fell silent.

  
“…Guess I forgot about that too…” he coughed again, but no one interrupted.

  
“I remember being at April’s. And Casey was there, I think. You guys left…and I was on the couch or something…my head hurt pretty bad and I couldn’t focus…I think that’s it.”

  
“What about the power? Mikey knocked out the whole grid during the fight. You remember that?” Raph ignored the no-doubt pointed look Mikey was shooting him as he neglected to mention it was done to save his life, but he had his reasons. Thinking he was incompetent was one thing, but saying it out loud was not what he intended to focus on so long as Don appeared to be one recollection away from a total breakdown.

  
Donatello’s expression became strained. “The power…went out. I can’t remember when…April left to do something but I couldn’t understand what, my head was killing me. I couldn’t even think anymore...and then out of _nowhere_ my-” His breath hitched as it struck him.

  
Seeing Don so out of it was difficult to watch, but it was nowhere near as difficult as watching him slowly trace the rough, swollen outline of a newly healed scar with his eyes, then clutch his leg like he felt a phantasmal flare of the pain he had almost forgotten.

  
“… _No_ …”

  
“Donatello, it’s alright-”

  
“I…I ran _every_ test, I was _so_ careful, I-I thought it was just-? _I couldn’t find_ -” He sputtered out, but his voice was barely even audible.

  
“My son, you must calm down-” Splinter attempted to close the gap between them, but Don kept his distance.

  
“April! Casey…tell me they’re alright. _Please._ Tell me I didn’t…”

  
“April and Casey are just fine, Don. Though I’m sure they’re worried out of their minds right now, should we call them?”

  
Donatello swayed forward suddenly, but this time he let Splinter steady him. He sighed in relief, but it did little to ease his own tension. He appeared to grow heavier by the second, and Raph wasn’t surprised that much as Don tried to conceal it, he was exhausted and his body would surely give out on him any minute now. What that meant for the rest of them remained to be seen.

  
“Maybe later.” Leo eyed Don anxiously, and Raphael understood. _Not while he’s like this._ The raw guilt would surely destroy him, if his damn persistent _cold_ didn’t finish the job first.

  
“And…you guys? Are you alright?” He couldn’t take the way Donatello was looking at him. He knew what he was really asking. He tightened his grip on Michelangelo’s shoulder.

  
“We’re here, ain’t we? That not good enough for you or something?” He tried to play off the unspoken question as nonchalantly as possible, but Don was as stubborn as he usually was. Donatello would blame himself for the rain, if the thought occurred to him.

  
“That’s not…I meant-”

  
“Donnie…” he sighed, dropping his act and sending him a genuine look of concern. “Don’t do this to yourself. You already look like you got the life sucked out of you, and you want me to beat you down for something that isn’t even your fault? I get that you want to know every little last detail about how much of a pain in the ass you were, and oh, you _were_. But you know what? We never stopped fighting, not because you hurt us, but because we were _hurt_. We were hurtin’ real bad without you, so no matter what happened, we would have done everything the same a million times over just to get you back, you know that? Because inside that pain-in-the-ass monster was our pain-in-the-ass brother, and _that_ Don? That’ll never change, no matter what your DNA has to say about it.”

  
“…”

  
“Donnie, I know you’re scared, but everything is going to be alright, okay? I promise.” Leonardo gently assured him like he had seen him do for hours on end, repeating this, his own little mantra like if he said it enough times he’d hit that magic number that would undo the damage Bishop had done to them. Maybe he got something out of it, Raph knew he wasn’t the only one who came to Don for answers when everything descended into chaos. He was probably just trying to return the favor.

  
“But right now, you’re barely standing and still sick, by the sound of it. You need to rest.”

  
Donatello regarded them blearily, clearly losing his fight with fatigue, but nevertheless, he allowed himself a small, worn smile. “Good to see that nothing’s changed around here…” he mumbled more to himself than anyone, but Raph heard him loud and clear.

  
He couldn’t stifle a laugh at that, and though it was only at about a quarter of his normal ardor, Don’s eyes shone with silent appreciation.

  
“I guess it wasn’t all bad…You found a cure for those people when I couldn’t even wrap my head around it…” he turned to Leatherhead. “I’m guessing you had something to do with that, huh? …You went back to that place for me?”

  
“For you, my friend, anything.”

  
Don’s tired expression morphed into one of fondness, and a bright smile flitted across his face before he closed his eyes and coughed sharply.

  
“…Thank you.”

  
He turned his head lethargically to address the rest of them. “I’m sorry…I should have paid more attention…” Like he had said to him before this entire mess began, when Raph had considered him lucky to have gotten out of a jam with only a scratch instead of a gaping hole through him. He really should have known better by now; luck was almost never on their side.

  
“But I knew you guys would come through. I mean, look at you, landing in front of Bishop’s base in a helicopter we stole from him? A powerful move if ever there was one. I hope he liked the paint job.”

  
For a brief flicker of time, Donnie was himself again, albeit under the weather, but seeing Leo and Master Splinter and Leatherhead all smile at each other and Mikey finally relaxing his posture was almost enough to make him wish this moment could last until they landed. Almost.

  
Because when things ran a little too smoothly for his liking, Raphael, through years of trained habit, would get suspicious. He knew Don was almost as elastic as Mikey, so he never thought much of the way he would always dust himself off and continue on as if he had never been knocked down in the first place. It wasn’t so much an act of pride, though Don had much to be proud of, he made it a point to always let his gratitude be known whenever any of his brothers reached out to him. There was never anything particularly telling about the way he shook his head and buried himself in his work, because when Donatello had the will to create, he could do anything he set his mind to.

  
But when he had plodded up the stairs of April’s basement with that pained look in his eyes, Raph noticed something was off long before Don eventually told them what happened to her tenant. Sure enough, the next time Don allowed himself to smile, he never spoke of him again. So he began to realize as life went on that Donnie wasn’t as much of an open book as he had thought, rather, he was more of an open file on his computer, full of information but written in a language that Raphael could not decipher. And Don only decoded what he felt like decoding.

  
He had been rewiring a faulty light fixture with little success sometime after the whole Fugitoid situation had finally been sorted out at Don’s insistence because “they couldn’t always rely on him to fix everything, what would they do if he weren’t around, etcetera etcetera” but Raph swallowed his pride because he had a point. He hadn’t even realized how close they had almost come to that until he discovered the real reason Don refused to touch the electrical system, after Splinter had called Raphael into his room to ask after his welfare.

  
He was horrified of course, and angry enough to beat a few new scuffs into his punching bag later that night, but enough time had passed since then, and he didn’t want to reopen old wounds because in all actuality, Don was the only one who really knew what to do when they bled. So he trusted him to take care of it himself because he was the expert, and he’d tell them whenever he was ready if he wanted to. Raph would be there to support him each step of the way, only making a small scene before capitulating to whatever it was Donnie needed his help with this time. Sure enough, eventually Don sought him out less and less frequently as the days came and went, and this too faded away, never to be referenced again.

  
He wanted to believe it was a good thing. Donatello had been independent ever since they were kids, and though Raph had always somewhat felt it his responsibility to keep an eye on him, he could relate to that feeling that came before all of Don’s inventions and books, before his own cynicism. That call of freedom that enticed them to move through the world in tandem, with the promise of no expectations to surpass, and he just _missed_ how simple it used to be, when his thoughts only moved in one direction. When time was an ally instead of a ruthless adversary.

  
But he knew better than to ask those questions. Raphael meant it when he said he would do anything for his brothers, but it only ever made things worse. Somewhere along the way that sentiment only seemed to bring Don pain, and Raph told himself he was being respectful by not prying his reasons from him. But then he broke down sobbing into his shoulder, and he told himself he was being an idiot, standing idly at a distance while Donatello beat back the memories of some nightmarish future on his own because this was a problem he couldn’t solve with his sai. Don needed him, but he froze, so overcome by his own helplessness that he could only wrap himself around his brother like if he held him at least he’d know that his body was safe here, hoping his mind would figure that out in its own time.

  
So it came as no surprise that when he tried to ask about it after Don regained his composure, he was shut down. He knew it was probably selfish of him to be irritated, but the unknown frightened him almost as much as the knowledge frightened Donnie, though he’d never admit it. Even so, Leo, Mikey, even Dad, all of them far more qualified to handle situations like this than him, were unable to get much of anything out of Donatello themselves and he ultimately begged them to just drop it. And again, they acquiesced to his wishes because he never seemed out of sorts until it would get brought up again. They kept their worries to themselves, and in return, Donnie’s assurances would power the pattern for at least another cycle. But that was Don. Methodical, unyielding…he was never going to change.

  
But then he had. Quite literally, and drastically for good measure. Raph wanted so badly just to pretend that the savage beast in front of him was just using Don as a vessel for aimless destruction, that the matter at hand was as simple as separating the two like oil and water. Because this vicious, brutish monster was so far removed from his laid-back, ingenious brother that they could just retrieve him from wherever he had been tucked away, and it would be over.

  
But as he looked into its eyes, he finally understood what Leatherhead had been attempting to explain; that this _was_ his brother in a way that went beyond DNA and scientific jargon, that this form was as much a part of Don as his desperate need to separate himself from it. Obviously, there were more factors at play here, but Raphael honestly couldn’t remember the last time he saw Donnie look that pained, that angry, that _raw_ …and had he not been in immediate danger, he would have succumbed to his grief on the spot. Even as Don began to lash out violently, he couldn’t bring himself to raise a hand against him.

  
The melancholy he buried within him found itself intertwined with strands of his genetic material and manifested as a form that he had been forced into by factors beyond his control. Though the virus had left Donatello unable to recognize them, surely he wouldn’t have attacked them otherwise, there was something so undeniably Don about the way he tried to wander home amidst the chaos, attempting even then to avoid them until they sought him out. So his brothers took to consoling him in the off-chance that he would understand them, because the fact that he needed to hear that it was alright for him to be afraid, to pound against the glass if it took away even a fraction of what had been inflicted on him; that was more important than anything the unfamiliar had to offer. They watched him unleash his pent-up anguish to the point where he quite literally had nothing left to give, and they knew he was dying before they could discern the reason. They had all promised long ago in the fuzzy realm of piecewise recollection that they would never abandon one another, and while Leo swore they were doing everything they could, Raph couldn’t help but feel as though they had already broken this particular covenant enough times for it to no longer apply. They had already failed Donatello.

  
And here _he_ was, apologizing. 

  
He swayed again, and almost his entire weight rested on his father who was trying his best not to show it. Donnie was still sick after the entire ordeal, and as he just tried to keep his balance, Raph could see how worn out he looked now that his focus had shifted away from maintaining the easiness he was known for. His face was gaunt and pallid, and shadows hung around his eyes where his mask should have been. He had been through so much, and the fact that his expression did very little to conceal that was worrying, to say the least.

  
With one last little push of energy, he managed to pull himself back up, managing a weak grip on Master Splinter’s arm.

  
“Welcome back, my son.”

  
There was a gentle smile across his face, but there was something sluggish about it, like his exhaustion was pulling him back into the haze of addled oblivion. As he slipped away, his words were accented with a strange gravity; he’d likely be out for a while, and he knew it.

  
“I hope you guys didn’t go through too much trouble for me…”

  
No one knew what to say. Only Donnie would allow the inconvenience of getting him back to weigh on his soul. Raphael couldn’t deny it, it was absolutely inconvenient, but that wasn’t the point, and the fact that Don still couldn’t get it through his thick sick skull that they loved him no matter what stupid bullshit they had to endure for him was heartbreaking. But what were they supposed to tell him instead?

  
“…Nah.”

  
Bless Michelangelo and his infinite wisdom. His smile was warm and full of unspoken promises. Donatello seemed satisfied, reciprocating in kind with a crooked grin before his legs buckled beneath him. He checked out there on the floor like he had only been waiting to hear that he wasn’t a burden before he could no longer keep his weakness at bay. In time, his sentences became muddled and made little sense, and soon after that he quit responding all together before finally falling unconscious in Leatherhead’s lap.

  
Leatherhead monitored him closely, assuring them that it was alright, that Donnie would likely be out for the rest of the night but not to worry about his condition, that he was exhibiting more flu-like symptoms now that his body was fighting off the remnants of the virus, that he should be good as new within a few weeks, assuming he didn’t relapse.

  
Raph knew that there was no way that Leatherhead knew any of that for sure, but it made them feel better to hear him say it anyway. However, Raph also knew that there was little chance Don would be “good as new” by the end of the whole ordeal, it was just more speculation thrown in to boost everyone’s spirits, the only problem with that being of course that Raph knew his brother better than Leatherhead. And he knew that when things like this occurred that Donnie was never quite the same in the aftermath, much as he pretended. It was too early to really tell how he would process everything.

  
Raphael hadn’t really given himself much time to process what had occurred until recently, and if he was struggling, he was almost sure Don would struggle ten times harder, because Don was nothing if not an overachiever. They always harped on him during times where somehow got it into his head that he had to know absolutely everything, lest the end of the world occur due to his inability to remember every obscure fact he had ever read. He couldn’t grasp that sometimes problems were just unsolvable, that the mysteries of the universe were mysteries for a reason, that he wasn’t the only one lost and confused within it.

  
But now more than ever Raph could relate to the frustration he felt. Donnie’s mutation had him backed into a corner, and even now that he had returned to them, he found himself still at a loss. More than anything he wanted to be back on the ground, to find some generic thugs and take his anger out on them instead because at least then he’d be doing someone somewhere some good. He looked at Donatello and saw the result of an amalgamation of mistakes he kept trying in vain to avoid.

  
He never backed down from confrontation, much as his brothers teased him about it, but something about Don made his determination wither. In all his callousness he didn’t have the heart to tell Donnie what he probably needed to hear because that mean that he’d have to hear it too. It wasn’t so much ripping off a bandage as it was pulling out a knife, because the wounds were still very much open, far more messy and far more painful, the scars left behind as angry and jagged as the one on Don’s leg. He just couldn’t do that to him.

  
But he couldn’t leave well enough alone, because there was no such thing. Donatello would sit on his unprocessed emotions and hope they never came back to haunt him, and though he was pretty sure the risk of him relapsing was low, it didn’t mean that his trauma wouldn’t take hold of him in other ways. This put Raph in a bind, as he wouldn’t normally hesitate to throw himself at anyone who dared to attack his family, but more often than not, Don was his own assailant. Raphael had a duty as his brother to protect him, but what was he meant to do in this sort of paradoxical situation?

  
It was difficult to verbalize how he felt, and the more he failed to communicate the more annoyed he grew, and the more tempting it was to just leave the whole thing to rot somewhere because it was hard to think about. Maybe that was the reason he seemed to understand where Don was coming from most of the time, but he’d do him no favors by agreeing with him, so he’d pass him along to Leo so he could hear it from someone who wasn’t a hypocrite.

  
Mikey squeezed his shoulder like he knew what he was thinking, but he didn’t say anything. No one said anything, they just let Donnie sleep because there wasn’t anything else they could do now but wait. His breathing was too shallow and raspy for Raph’s liking, but somehow even unconscious Donatello had a way of forcing him to calm down. If he didn’t, he’d surely burn himself out, and then he’d really be of no use to Don, who was going to need all the help he could get whenever he woke up.

  
Leonardo seemed to sense his restlessness too, and silently relinquished his seat to Splinter. He gently took his brothers’ hands in his, and pulled them down to sit with him there on the floor to ride out the rest of the nothingness together. Maybe another time he would have welcomed the static, but as he looked over his brother’s limp form again, he realized that this was an emptiness that echoed his every failure, amplifying them to a volume that made tranquility impossible. He deserved no escape where there was none for Don, simple as that. They were in this together, and if he was going to reach into the darkness and pull him through, he’d first have to uncover his own eyes and get his hands dirty with the same courage and determination Donnie offered him each time he’d wander into his lab less than whole.

  
But that was later. Michelangelo rested his head on Leo’s shoulder and yawned. Leo followed suit not soon after, but made an effort to keep himself upright. It occurred to Raph that they were also probably tired themselves, having done most of the combat in New York, but neither were willing to break their gaze from Donatello, like if they looked away for a second he’d disappear.

  
“You should follow your own advice you know.” He attempted to joke.

Hmm?” Leo’s mouth twisted upward in what Raphael assumed to be a smile, though it was honestly difficult to tell.

  
“Sleep. You look like ass, so I _know_ you’re tired.”

  
“Some of us have to work at it, Raph.” Mikey retorted wryly, but it was borderline mechanical.

  
Raphael tried to shove him, but Mikey only fell further into Leo, and in surprise, they both fell to the floor in graceless depletion. He snorted at the sight, but Don stirred and he immediately fell silent. Leonardo glared at him, but there was no sharpness to it, and he pulled them both back up when Mikey made no effort to get up himself.

  
“Aren’t you tired?”

  
“…You know how I am.”

  
It was all he could provide, but they appeared to understand well enough. Mikey gave him a small but genuine smile, and settled himself into Leo’s side where he dozed off almost instantly. Leo adjusted himself accordingly, wrapping one arm around him while reaching for Raph with the other. Dimly, he realized that he intended to pull him in as well. He intercepted his arm, plucking it from midair so that they were hand in hand again. Leo only blinked in confusion, and Raph just sighed heavily.

  
“Rest, bro. I’ll wake you up as soon as he does, I promise.”

  
He stalled for a bit before finally nodding reluctantly. Raphael allowed him to rub his hand with his thumb a few times despite himself, and Leonardo settled into uneasy sleep as soon as he let himself exhale.

  
With that, Raph reoriented his focus onto Don, who had been since still. There was something ironic about watching him from a distance like this, like it was only fair for him to be forced to after he had done it time after time of his own volition. Watching his brother deteriorate physically into such a state knowing there was nothing he could do seemed a fitting punishment for all the times he had watched Donnie deteriorate mentally, expecting him to pick up the pieces that flaked off of him as easily as he put them back together, while he absolved himself of any action he could have taken to lessen his suffering because he was afraid.

  
Afraid of making everything worse, but really at this point, he had achieved that anyways. Afraid to cause his beloved brother more pain, but again, he had achieved that anyways. Afraid he wouldn’t be able to protect him, but he was the whole reason this even happened in the first place.

  
_What was he capable of?_ A question that once held so much potential for him now caused him to run for the hills because he was afraid of the answer to that too. His brothers were brave, selfless. They deserved to rest.

  
He’d sit here and keep watch because he deserved nothing except his paranoia. The time would only continue to tick away until he would have to face the consequences of his cowardice. He owed it to Don to at least be prepared, but he couldn’t think of a single thing he could do or say that would fix this, and he just didn’t have the energy to ignore how hollow he felt. He tried not to give way to the familiarity of complacency, but the mindless droning hum of the helicopter proved more alluring than thoughts that stuck and piled on each other like dead weight.

  
Maybe one of these days he’d amount to more than that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, italics ahead. For a little while, at least. If that bothers you I apologize in advance. Regardless, I hope everyone is staying safe out there.

_“I told you to pay attention, but I swear, it’s like you never take me seriously.”_

_His face scrunched briefly before the tightness produced a flare of pain, and he was forced to let it fall away into flippancy. He brought up a hand to cover his wound before turning to address his brother._

_“Honestly Mikey, I don’t know why you’re surprised.”_

_They had been out on patrol when they caught wind of a Dragon operation underway a few blocks over. A curious occurrence, they had been pretty quiet recently, though any excitement Raphael may have felt over cracking a few heads quickly soured upon his thankfully non-lethal run-in with a surprise switchblade to the face._

_“Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t look too good.” Raph sighed, Leonardo was on his case even now, he had badgered him the whole way back-_

_“It’s Raph, Leo. He always looks busted.”_

_Michelangelo was all the way in front of the TV before Raphael even thought to swat him, though his snickering carried from across the room. He rolled his eyes and turned away, but Leo blocked his path._

_“Seriously Raph, let me take a look at it-”_

_“I can do it myself, I’ll handle it. It looks worse than it actually is...”_

_“…But?”_

_“…Okay so I’ll go swipe some painkillers from Don. Happy?”_

_“I’m glad you’re alright.”_

_His eyes spoke to what remained unspoken, and Raph knew better than to linger on it. Still, he offered what he could, reaching out to grab Leonardo’s shoulder before those thoughts could pull him away again._

_“…Thanks, Fearless.”_

_“Now go check on Donnie.”_

_Raph stalled and he figured he must have had one stupid look on his face to have made Leo chuckle like that…It was almost enough for him to ignore the pathetic sputtering sound he was making at being found out so easily._

_“What makes-hold on, I wasn’t even-”_

_But he was already waving him away, smiling over his shoulder; apparently he found it amusing to hand him a shovel watch him dig his own grave. There was nothing else to do but shut his mouth and stomp away to find Donatello while Leonardo’s back was turned, at least._

_He wandered in the vague direction of noise. There was no telling where he had set up shop now, there were a number of spots Don claimed for himself while the layout of the lair was still up in the air. Tonight, it was the furthest corner away from the main entrance, whether out of courtesy or spite was also still very much up in the air._

_“Yo, Donnie? You around?”_

_“Riiight where you left me.” Raphael winced as Donatello turned away from his computer, watching his wry expression flatten with worry as suddenly as if he had been struck._

_“Oh! Raph, your forehead, it’s bleeding-” Raph waved his hands dismissively, but Don was already searching for his bag._

_“Yeah yeah, I noticed. It ain’t that bad, you don’t need to freak out.”_

_“What happened?”_

_“Some asshole nicked me with something metal, no big deal.”_

_“No big deal? Any lower and you’dve probably lost your eye.”_

_“What, did you go to medical school? Gimme a break, Don. It isn’t even **that** deep…”_

_“Yeah, good thing you’ve got such a hard head, huh?”_

_Don was probably just trying to make him laugh, but there was something jagged about his teasing that was unusual of their regular exchanges, something about the way he clutched the strap of the bag he had found too quickly for it to have been missing-_

_“Low blow, man. You mad at me or something?”_

_“I will be if you bleed all over my stuff, you walking health hazard.”_

_It wasn’t a real answer, but Raphael didn’t want to make something out of nothing, Donatello did that well enough on his own. So he allowed him to pull him along into his chair with minimal resistance._

_“Man, you get nasty when you’re bored-”_

_“Shut up and c’mere. Lemme take a look at you.”_

_“I got it Donnie, don’t worry about it.”_

_“I don’t mind, I needed a break anyways…Here, hold this.” A box of wipes fell into his lap._

_“…I saw you cleaning glass with these…” He mumbled but Don didn’t even acknowledge him, rooting around in his bag for…something unnecessary, surely. He just did as he was told and started cleaning the blood off of his forehead. Maybe if he made himself comfortable Don would calm down too._

_“So what’s the diagnosis, Doc?”_

_Donatello hummed and moved in, scrutinizing his face through squinted eyes before he made a show of tapping his chin in pseudo-consideration._

_“You have…a cut on your forehead.”_

_“That wasn’t very scientific.”_

_Don snorted and shrugged nonchalantly, but Raph could see the playful smirk on his face without even looking at him._

_“I never went to medical school. But I’ll tell you what, you ever need surgery, I know a guy in Nevada who’ll cut you open pro bono.”_

_“Not a chance. Honestly, the further I stay away from that alien-obsessed nut and his new band of mutant freaks, the better.”_

_“Come on, Raph. You know no one ever asked to be mutated. We can’t hold that against them.”_

_“I guess…but look what they did to your leg, Don-”_

_“Raph, your **scratch** is deeper.” he deadpanned, likely trying to minimize his concern, but a flash of coloration upon the dirty white caught Raphael’s eye, and he couldn’t help himself. _

_“Then what the hell is that?” He pointed to Donatello’s leg, bandages recently stained with something he couldn’t name and he was willing to be content with that, so long as he knew that it wasn’t a sign that his leg was going to fall right off the rest of him._

_“Raph, it’s fine. It’s just trying to heal. Sometimes this just happens. I’ve run a few tests already just to make sure the infection isn’t too severe but it was really hard to avoid, the sewers aren’t exactly the best place to run around in with an open wound…no doubt something got in, I just don’t know what. I haven’t been able to find anything yet. But at this point there isn’t really anything else I can do for it besides keep the area clean, which I was going to do before you waltzed in.”_

_“Then why are you-”_

_“I’ve got it handled.” Don pulled out a bottle of peroxide and threw it at him as his way of punctuating the conversation._

_“Here. I might as well just write your name on this. I can’t ask April to buy a new bottle every week when you’re the only one using it, so you’d better make it last…”_

_He rambled on like that for a bit while he worked, disinfecting Raphael’s pitiful injury with the precision he was sure he had attained through recent practice, but whether Donatello had gotten lost in his words or his actions he was unsure. Either way, with a wound as insignificant as this, he should have been done by now._

_“…Donnie…”_

_He was interrupted as Don pulled away from him to sneeze._

_“You sure you're okay? You’ve been kinda sick since we came home that night-”_

_“Correlation doesn’t equal causation.”_

_He moved as though he meant to continue working, but Raph stopped him, handing him back the bottle of peroxide. He eyed it warily, but ultimately conceded, reassuming his place next to his bag a few feet away._

_“Regardless, you look run-down. Have you not been sleeping again? I know we gotta get to the bottom of this outbreak business but Don, you can’t keep doing this to yourself or your body’s gonna crap out on you. You’ve been through a lot-”_

_“Raph, everyone’s been through a lot.” Of course Don would make an argument he couldn't actually argue against…_

_“…We **all** lost our home, we were all separated from each other…heck, at least Master Splinter was with me, you guys were all alone until Leo found you…And what about him, huh? It took him forever to build himself back up after he tore himself apart for months. **He’s** been through a lot, but I never saw you get after him about absolutely everything. He might have actually benefited from it-”_

_“You know he wouldn’t have. Leo’s Leo. He never listens to me anyways.”_

_“And I’m just me then, is that it? I’m supposed to hang on your every word?” Raphael laughed at the absurdity of it, but Donatello’s face never changed._

_“C’mon Don, you know it ain’t like that.”_

_“I don’t, really. You know I notice when you guys treat me differently.” His tone was sarcastic, but the ice was getting thinner, and Raph knew it. It still didn’t stop him from responding in kind._

_“What are you-? Listen genius, if the toaster breaks we’ll give you a call, but you don’t get to exalt yourself or put words in my mouth like that cause you think you’re special. We’re all equally terrible.”_

_“That’s not-I didn’t…I don’t understand how I can ‘exalt’ myself when I didn’t make the choice to stay here alone. You guys literally left me behind tonight.”_

_“Donnie, you’re getting sick. And until we know what’s causing it, it’s not a good idea for you to be spreading your disgusting mutant germs everywhere. I know it’s New York, but if these people were immune to everything they’d be immortal.”_

_“I’m doing the best I can! And I’m not sick Raph, sneezing three times does not constitute illness.”_

_“I know you are, Don. I’m sorry we made you feel that way-”_

_“It’s fine...But you guys didn’t even **ask** me if I wanted to go out with you.”_

_“Because Splinter said you couldn’t.”_

_“Oh, and we all just listen to Master Splinter now?”_

_For the second time of the night, Raphael’s jaw hung slack, and Donatello grinned at that, but it was apologetic until he’d had enough time to quickly survey the room, just in case._

_“…Don’t tell him I said that…but seriously, how many times have you snuck out this month?”_

_“And your point is?”_

_“I guess…I know he means well, but so far, the only things on my record here are the aforementioned sneezes, and this scratch on my leg, but here I am under house arrest. That doesn’t seem unreasonable to you?”_

_“Personally, I don’t see what you’re complaining about, at least you don’t have to train…”_

_“But that’s just it though, don’t you hear yourself? You guys keep putting me in this stupid loop because you think you know what’s best for me without-”_

_He halted himself with another sneeze before continuing exasperatedly._

_“…consulting me first….”_

_He shoved his bag away into the shadows, like its presence only served as an unwanted reminder that did more harm than good._

_“…No offense Donnie, but if it were up to you, you’d have coffee for 4 AM dinner.”_

_“Yeah, and if it were up to you, every wall in this place would have a Mikey-shaped hole through it but you don’t hear me grilling you for your decision-making skills.”_

_“Hey, if you didn’t give us reasons to be worried about you-” Raphael stopped himself but it was too late, and Donatello’s expression instantly bittered._

_“Me? You say it like it’s **my** fault.”_

_“Don…you know it’s not your fault-”_

_“ **Of course it isn’t-** ” _

_He spat angrily but his voice was laced with pain, and immediately his hand was grasping at his leg. Raph stood up to assist him, but he had barely been on his feet before Don took a deep breath and folded his arms like the angry throb was only mildly inconvenient. Raph led him to sit in his place and crossed his own arms as he knelt and watched his brother’s agitation subside into embarrassment._

_“…Be careful, will you? You must’ve knocked it against something. It ain’t gonna get better if you keep botherin’ it.”_

_“Exactly! Exactly-I’m sorry. I got a little carried away again…But you gotta understand my frustration, Raph. After all, you basically just proved my point. I know you guys aren’t trying to suffocate me or anything, but what I’ll never get is how you guys trust me to disarm a literal nuke no problem, but you can’t trust me to take care of myself. Everyone always comes running every time I get knocked over but honestly, if I needed your help, I would have asked.”_

_“Are you talking about-? I was only trying to-”_

_“Protect me? I know. And I appreciate you looking out for me, I really do-and I know that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop you, or anyone else for that matter because it’s just a family thing; I would have done the same. But I trust your judgement because that’s what you’re good at. Putting holes in things is your area of expertise, Raph. Patching them up is mine. I just want you all to respect that. I may not have all the answers yet, but I know what I’m doing.”_

_Putting holes in things, huh? He felt the air rush out of him and just let his expression deflate._

_“…You shouldn’t.”_

_“What?”_

_“…Trust my judgement…”_

_“Raph-”_

_“No Donnie, you’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you like that…”_

_Raphael couldn’t stop himself, and Donatello followed his gaze._

_“…Is that what this is all about?”_

_Don gently took his hands and smiled reassuringly, but Raph sighed heavily and looked away. They were both aware that he already knew the answer to that._

_“Sorry for worrying you. But I didn’t think you out of everyone would get all bent out of shape over a scratch.”_

_“…I’m tryin to apologize here…”_

_“I know that, but I’m not sure why. You saved my life…again. You’re pitching a perfect game. If anything, I should’ve been more careful, but you know, it’s in the past. I can sit here all day and come up with all the ways I should have been better, or what I could have done differently, but honestly, it’s like dividing a problem in half infinitely until you go insane. I think our energy is better spent when we move away from it all together and focus on moving forward.”_

_Raphael sighed. Donnie always knew what to say, but he found himself at a loss for words far too often._

_“…Thanks, coach.”_

_“Hey, that’s some good advice. It’s no proverb, but I wish you guys would listen sometimes.”_

_“I’m sorry Don…I really am-”_

_“Raph, it’s okay. I’m not upset-”_

_“No, it’s just-we’re all being paranoid I guess…we’re all still getting used to this new place and everything, and all the stuff that came before it with Leo was a lot to handle, I-I just think we’re so afraid because we really can’t afford to lose someone Donnie, I mean we **just** got Leo back and-and…look at me, am I even making any sense? I’m-I feel like I’m just babbling now-”_

_Donatello squeezed his hands again and his train of thought came to a screeching halt. He tried to ground himself in that feeling so that he could later return and bury himself in it._

_“I read you bro. Just…breathe, alright? I’m not going anywhere, okay? No one’s losing anybody, Raph. See? I’m just fine. We’re all okay, and getting better, right? This ugly old thing’ll heal itself up soon enough, and I promise you I’ll look at it and remember what you did for me, because you and I both know that mutant could have easily impaled me if you hadn’t been there. Please don’t be so hard on yourself, you did the right thing.”_

_“…Thanks, Don…But you’re right. That’s no reason raise the alarm and shut you up in here all alone, just cause we’re afraid of some wild worst-case scenario, you know? I get it now, all things considered, we probably overreacted a little.”_

_“And I get where you’re coming from now at least, though I definitely agree you should have just let me make my own decisions. I can take care of myself-”_

_“We know, Donnie, I swear we do. It isn’t you, okay? You’re one of the most resilient and resourceful guys out there, but none of that matters when we hit that panic button. No use trying to use logic when we’re runnin’ around without our heads, right? But I promise that if it were Leo, or Mikey, or me in this situation nothing would be any different. You’d probably feel differently if it were one of us, don’t lie, you’re always worrying yourself sick over stuff like that…I don’t blame you, family’s kinda all we got right now.”_

_“…I guess you’re right. I never really thought about it like that…but if you were in my place, you’d be absolutely miserable.”_

_He laughed at the image it conjured, giving Donatello a slap on the shoulder before he stood up, and the world expanded again._

_Not quite enough for his taste. An idea came to him, and a smirk followed just as easily._

_“…Yeah, if it were me, I’d probably just sneak out anyways.”_

_“Gasp, Raphael sneaking out? You rebel you, color me shocked-”_

_Don’s wry demeanor had returned with a vengeance, it seemed._

_“Not me, bonehead. Us.”_

_“Excuse me?”_

_“Grab your purse buddy, we’re scoping out all the fanciest junkyards this side of town.”_

_“You’re serious?”_

_“Only if you change those bandages first. I don’t wanna look at them anymore, they’re disgusting.”_

_“No way we won’t get caught sneaking back in.” But Don was already grabbing his things like he had asked him hours ago._

_“For sure, but maybe that’s a good thing. They’ll be mad, yeah, but when they see that you’re still alive, Splinter’ll have no choice but to let you go topside with us.”_

_Donatello looked up at him in surprise, pulling his forgotten bag from over his shoulder._

_“You’d do that for me?”_

_He was practically beaming, he obviously already knew the answer to that one too._

_“Hey, everyone needs a change in scenery every once and a while. Should be fairly quiet out there now, anyways. We could really go anywhere if you wanted to.”_

_“No, scrap run sounds good. I need more parts for the project I’m working on that I'm sure I won’t find in the dumpsters around here.”_

_“You mean the van?”_

_He looked up in alarm before he dabbed away at his leg with a resigned, if not a touch overdramatic sigh._

_“…It was supposed to be a surprise…”_

_“Your tarp is truck-shaped, Don. Mikey figured it out forever ago.”_

_“Can it Raph, you know what I meant. You guys haven’t looked at it yet, have you?”_

_“Nah, we know better, believe it or not. But I’m sure whatever you turn out’ll be brilliant as usual, Donnie. The old Battleshell was great, sure, but I can’t wait to see how this one’ll look once you’re finished with it.”_

_“How sweet…I’m not making you another bike.”_

_“Wha-? I wasn’t even-I didn’t-Look! I wasn’t MY fault the last one got wrecked, okay? Let’s get that straight-”_

_Donatello only laughed as Raphael attempted to plead his case, and the two went back and forth until he finished re-wrapping his leg, finally placing himself at Raph’s side, duffel in hand, sliding into place like he had always been there._

_Giving him a shove for good measure, if for no other reason than to secretly alleviate his fears, Don did not collapse; he didn’t even sneeze. Instead, he scoffed, allowing the side of his bag to swing and hit Raph in the arm before promptly ditching him._

_Yeah, he was making the right call._

_Raphael snickered and followed after him, and the two silently snuck off into the night together._

* * *

He arrived at the junkyard alone.

He waited a bit for Donatello’s shadow to eclipse him, expecting him to pole vault over him with his bo at any moment, but when everything remained uncomfortably silent and still Raphael was forced to accept that it had indeed only been a memory. Though, the events that had transpired earlier in the evening were more hazy and jumbled and painted more with vague sentiment, _they_ felt more like the memory than the fluid recollection that led him subconsciously to a location he wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

There was something debilitating about Don’s limp form slung over Mikey’s shoulder that made it difficult to focus on anything. Seeing him on their old couch in some random corner only served to remind him just how incomplete and unfinished and out of place everything was. _He_ felt out of place, and he hated the feeling because he knew his place should be there with his brothers, with _Donnie_ , but the words that were spoken only added to his noisy thoughts. So when in the midst of the chaos he was able to read Leonardo’s solemn look of understanding, there was a permission granted in it that he clung to, blocking everything else out for as long as it took him to turn on his heel and leave. But now that he was here…

He didn’t even know why he was here. There was nothing here for him, only scraps of what once was, and a noticeable empty space where his brother should have been. His brother who was sick while he was out here, despite all that he boasted of his bravery, having run away yet again. He promised Don he wouldn’t leave him behind only to abandon him when he needed him the most.

_What was wrong with him?_

Anger boiled to the surface and Raph welcomed it, it was better than feeling suspended above it all, frozen and numb. It should burn, he deserved it to, but thinking like this only made him think about Don and he swore he could hear his soft sigh of disapproval over the loud crashes of junk being tossed blindly about so he could forget he wasn’t the only one who felt guilty-

_He couldn’t stop._

Someone needed to stop him before he made any more noise, before someone found him, before the blows he dealt no longer rang against metal-he didn’t want to hurt anyone but he was out of control and scared that he would lay waste to the whole place until it looked as ravaged as he felt-

_“You’re not leaving much for me to salvage here, y’know. I’m not a miracle worker.”_

“Donnie?” Raph turned so fast he thought his head would spin off, but he was met with nothing but the scattered remains of a scrap heap he had just leveled. He growled, why should he have expected anything different? _Of course it wasn’t that easy, that simple, Bishop never bothered otherwise, it was all just a GAME to him-_

Something shifted behind him and in his frenzied state, he allowed instinct to guide his hand.

“ENOUGH!”

His sai impaled the fallen fender before it ever hit the ground, pinning it to the wreckage while the handle swung back and forth grimly-even it was disappointed in him. Raphael grit his teeth and wiped at his eyes, sighing in resignation as he yanked it out forcefully. It wasn’t often he was lucky, so he closed his eyes and sat, choosing to ignore the clatter of the fender from a frighteningly familiar height.

The anger ebbed away and the sadness was freezing, sapping away what remained of his energy until he settled into the numbness again. He buried his face in his hands so he wouldn’t have to stare through anything anymore. But his ears remained woefully open, and he couldn’t stand the silence.

“Don…I’m sorry.”

 _“You should be!”_ It was light though, there was no anger in it.

He never looked up; he knew his eyes were useless.

_“They’re already scraps, Raph. Are you trying to make my life harder?”_

“You know I never meant-”

_“Don’t worry about it. It was already in pretty rough shape before you got ahold of it…but I can work with that, no sweat. I can work out those…err, impurities, and it’ll be good as new! Like you never even scratched it!”_

“…I’m so sorry…”

_“What for? Hey, hey, it’s okay, you know? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about it…Look, I’m already over it, see?”_

“…pull your head out of your ass, Don…please…”

_“Just as soon as you pull the stick out of yours. If you need a minute, take one, I got all night. But I want you here, Raph. I need you here, actually-I’m going to do another lap around the place, and I can’t carry all this stuff on my own.”_

“…Be there in a second…”

True to his word, he hoisted himself up and ran home without so much as a farewell, the junkyard dissolving behind him like it had never been there at all.

At least his brothers were right where he left them. It was eerily quiet when he arrived back for the second time, and it drove him to seek refuge from the wide-open spaces he once needed to breathe, because he had nothing to fill them with anymore. No one waited for him, so he wasted no more time.

He subconsciously looked for Donatello first, allowing himself a small sigh of relief at seeing him curled up on the couch, occasionally shifting in restlessness like he had only ever just been awake longer than he should have. The color had returned to him, but his breathing still had a very apparent rasp to it that practically mocked him for getting his hopes up. This was still far from over, he was foolish to believe otherwise-

“Raph?”

Not far away he found Michelangelo and Leonardo huddled on the floor collapsed and deflated, their arms loosely wrapped around one another but one look at them told him all he needed to know. Even that wasn’t enough to keep them from falling apart. One met his eyes, the other only subconsciously tightened his grip just enough so that Raphael knew his presence had been acknowledged.

“Mikey? What’s the matter?” He whispered, taking leave of Don for just a moment so that he could tend to his brothers who were at least semi-conscious.

Michelangelo hesitantly pried himself away, removing his arms from around Leo’s waist, and he rubbed at his eyes as he sat back up. He gave Raphael a blank look once he was able to focus on him again. Leonardo never stopped staring off into space, and Raph could only imagine what it was he was seeing. He really didn’t want to.

“Sorry, dumb question I guess…is he-?”

“Yeah, uh…it’s just…been a rough night. I think he’s still shaken up about having to…y’know…having to _shoot him-_ ”

“ _I’m right here.”_ Leo snapped. Raph grimaced, but Mikey didn’t even flinch, setting a placating hand on Leo’s shoulder.

“Well…so are we, if that helps.” He smiled apologetically, and Leonardo seemed to soften at that. He took a deep breath but still let Michelangelo’s hand fall away like if he needed it he’d be penalized somehow.

“I’m fine. It’s just…it’s really hard to see him like this…I don’t know how you guys did it before.” He attempted, laughing quietly to himself, but it was so devoid of humor he likely didn’t even know what he was laughing at.

“We took breaks when we needed them, for starters. You look like you could use one, both of you. Let me keep watch for a while. Ain’t like I’ve been all that helpful tonight anyhow-”

Mikey eyed him incredulously.

“Personally, I think we should all take a page out of Donnie’s book and sleep this whole thing off-”

“Mikey, you know that none of us are gonna be able to really sleep until he wakes up. And if that’s the case I guess we ought to be as ready as we can for whatever he needs when the time comes, right?”

“No Raph I can’t leave him, I _won’t_ leave him-”

“Leo, you said it yourself, it’s hard. So just…take a minute, and come back when you’re ready, okay? I took mine earlier, now I’m ready. Just…please. Let me do this. Let me look after him while you take some time to calm down and clear your head because Don is gonna need every single one of us to be there for him _then_ , and you know I’m right.”

Raphael dared him to argue, to narrow his eyes or shut him down or lash out or do anything that would expose the frayed ends of his mental state, to prove that despite his progress he wasn’t able to bear the brunt of the world any more than he should have the brunt of Karai’s blade.

For better or for worse, Michelangelo didn’t give him the time.

“Come on Leo, just for a bit. I’m sorry to say it, but I agree with Raph. Can’t hurt to think about something else for a little while. I’ll make you some tea, if you want it.”

Leonardo’s attention shifted between the two of them, embittered at having been outnumbered, but nevertheless looking as though he didn’t have it in him to argue anymore. With a resigned sigh and a long parting glance in Donatello’s direction, he set off towards the kitchen, but not before whispering sharply over his shoulder.

“One cup. That’s it.” And he was gone.

Raph looked at Mikey expectantly, but he didn’t go after him, instead approaching as though he meant to pull him along. Despite everything, his eyes shone with understanding, and Raph figured Mikey likely already knew what he was thinking.

“You should follow your own advice, you know.”

“…I will. I just need to do this-”

“Alone? Look bro, I get it. You don’t want us to be around when the wall falls, but…it’s a bit late for all that now, don’t you think? I mean…You know I’m here whether you like it or not, none of that ‘Lone Ranger’ bullshit, hear me? Not again. I love you guys but I honestly don’t know what’d I’d do if we let it all fall apart when we’re literally still putting Don back together.”

Michelangelo stared him down in the dark, serious as death, and for once, Raph felt small in his looming shadow. He no longer desired to argue, but he didn’t mourn the loss, surprising them both by grabbing Mikey in a quick but tight hug as he embraced the overwhelming pride that grew in its place. Raph sighed, punctuating it with a quiet laugh that leaked exhaustion.

“…Have you always been this insightful?” Mikey gave him a tired smile back.

“When your brothers are three parts of a whole stubborn, self-sacrificing idiot you learn to pick up on things.”

Had he the energy or moral standing, he would’ve called him a hypocrite right there. But much as Raphael would normally argue to the contrary, Mikey wasn’t stupid, just highly opinionated. He’d talk about anything before he’d talk about himself.

“How’s the leg?”

“Still attached. Don’t change the subject, we’re talking about you here-”

His face fell, then narrowed sharply in dim recognition.

“…Still got a lot to learn I guess. Kinda walked into that one…”

Raph smiled softly, nudging him with an elbow.

“If you're finished grandstanding, go make Leo some tea. And while you’re at it Mikey, better make some for yourself and drink to your initiation. We’re all officially together in the idiot quartet now.”

Michelangelo rolled his eyes but managed to find a good-natured smile from somewhere to paste onto his face before he made to follow Leonardo to the kitchen. However, he paused a moment before he could get far.

“…Right. I’ll hold you to that, Raph."

Raphael nodded, but Mikey had already turned away to uphold his end of the bargain, leaving him to close the space between him and his remaining brother.

It wasn’t the first time he had come across him unconscious, but Raph only stared at his empty hands as Donatello fidgeted in discomfort. He had nothing to give him, there was nothing he could do right now, he had gone out of his way to make sure Michelangelo and Leonardo wouldn’t have to see him like this but now that they were gone, he realized how little he wanted to see himself like this either.

He wished that Don were here to tell him what to do, how he could help, tell him it was okay and that he forgave him so Raph could hear it again. Let it give him the strength to forgive himself so the guilt didn’t rip him apart like he did everything else. If he could just apologize after everything he had been through so that he could finally close this gaping wound in his chest that ached more every moment Donnie wasn’t able to just patch him up with his words like he normally did-he couldn’t do it himself, no one knew him like Don did because he was always just… _there_ when things got ugly-why couldn’t he do it himself?

He knows he should know by now, Don always said he wouldn’t be around forever, _but he_ _never imagined he’d almost make good on it._ The anger was bubbling up to the surface again and he focused his glare on the persistent eyesore rewrapped around Donatello’s bad leg, deceptively clean, like they weren’t concealing the twisted and gnarled catalyst underneath.

Don had known he was sick. He knew he was only going to get worse and he _still_ ignored the warning signs, practically fooled him into ignoring them too. He _had helped him_ inadvertently fool the others, lying in wait for a result that never came until it was too late and he _knew_.

He couldn’t take care of himself anymore than Raph could and that only made him more frustrated at the futility of it all because maybe even that wouldn’t have enough to prevent what had happened. Still, Don made the final decision to keep his mouth shut and listen to him rant on about how worried it made him when Leo would shut him out, like it went without saying. _Like Raph were more an assortment of foreign instructions and broken parts than a brother because he had finally run out of glue-_

Donatello groaned in his sleep and coughed as he shrank, curling into himself on his side. The muted plop of the washcloth upon the floor yanked him out of his thoughts, and he distantly wondered why Leo would even bother trying to cool him down when he had been shivering all night until he picked it up to find it disconcertingly warm in his hands.

Don had a fever. Of course he did. Another thing he felt he should have known or expected but didn’t. But he never knew what to expect anymore. Maybe Donnie only lied to him about these things because he thought he was too dumb to understand, and he was running out of reasons to counter that theory. Who was he to argue? He had been blindly tearing things apart all night to temper that feeling, but he knew that he was as dense and worthless as the rag clenched in his fists.

He balled it up, enraged, and threw it to the ground. His ears rang with thoughts that screamed over each other, vying to be heard, and he sank down against the arm of the couch on the floor in the hopes that simply being near his brother would be enough to sort himself out somehow. It only made it worse; Don’s breathing was as shallow and ragged as his own. _He couldn’t be here anymore, this was too much to handle, Donnie was still getting worse, this was supposed to be the easy part but he really didn’t know what to do now that it still wasn’t over, but nothing was ever truly over for them, it was just one terrible experience after another…_

A series of congested sniffles hung in the air behind him, and Raphael welcomed the momentary reprieve. Had his train of thought not been barreling at Mach speed towards the nearest ravine, he may not have made much of it, but he was in a position to cling onto anything that slowed his descent. He thought dryly of Donatello, a part of him knew he would never abandon him, even with one foot in the grave. He adjusted himself to peek around the side of the couch to check on him, absentmindedly wondering if the washcloth was even worth it when he noticed the slight tremor of the blanket that had been placed over him.

Don had been crying.

The realization struck him, prevented him from immediately scrambling to his aid as he felt all the hot air he had been expelling suddenly rush back inward, filling his lungs until they burned and he couldn’t breathe. This whole time Don had been _crying_ , and Raphael was too busy being angry at him to notice-he was disgusted and ashamed. He let his temper get the better of him _now_ of all times, too concerned with how he could ease his own conscience to recall that Donnie had been through hell so many times he practically owned land there.

Don had been forced to double-mutate into a raging _monster_ , and here he was doing it of his own volition. At least now maybe he could finally learn to be empathetic. He felt that steam condensate inside him, and for a minute he allowed it to seep out again, the drops pricking at the corners of his eyes before he let it all drain away. He needed to learn to get _control_ over himself, is what he should learn. He was trying to figure everything out, as if he could somehow solve everything like Don would do if he were here, but he had forgotten in the swirling torrent of his emotions that Don wasn’t even gone.

He was right in front of him, and as much as Raph needed him, Donnie needed Raph even more.

He owed him that concession, though it hurt him to have to fulfill it in the first place. Just having a plan of action now let all his intrusive thoughts fade into the background, and he ultimately decided to wait until later to apologize, at time where it would serve to support Don rather than weigh him down with the rest of his problems.

The pang in his heart drove him to reach for Donatello’s hand as it hung off the couch and gently take it in one of his own. There wasn’t anything to be said so long as he knew Raphael was right there with him. It didn’t stop him.

"I’m here, Donnie...I gotcha, okay? I’m right here…” he repeated mumbling, like he had done many times before in the last few days, hopeful that he would now be able to reach him somehow, now that he could understand.

Without warning, Donatello went rigid in response and gripped Raphael’s hand hard enough to squeeze it off. He lurched forward, kicking the blanket away from him, and let out a strangled cry almost too hoarse to be heard. His free hand clutched at the bandages around his leg and Raph didn’t even have time to panic. Don was relapsing, there was no time to do anything, no time to warn anyone, and Raph was on his own. All he thought to do was pull him in close and wait for it to be over, just riding out another tough night as if they were kids again. And like their father had told them then, however it would pass, it would pass. He held on even tighter.

Nothing happened. Don was gasping for air and slick with sweat but he never let go of his hand. Raph was equally unwilling to let him go until he was absolutely certain he could breathe again himself. Don’s eyes were open, cloudiness evident in them before he squinted them to sneeze, so Raphael quickly but reluctantly put him back down.

He was disoriented and sluggish, but awake. He almost raced off to get his brothers, but Donatello still had a death grip on his arm.

“…where…?”

“Damn, I think that’s the longest I’ve seen you sleep in a while.” He tried softly, but his voice wavered. Donnie didn’t even seem to notice, he only stared through him. Another attempt to detach himself was fruitless, and it was beginning to become concerning.

“…We’re back home, Don. It’s okay, everything’s okay now. Leo and Mikey are in the kitchen-hang on, I’ll go get em-

“ _No!_ ” he hissed. He began to panic, with Raph at a loss as to why.

“Donnie-” he started, but thought better of trying to reason with him. It was when Donatello begged with his eyes, desperate for him to understand some unknown, invisible danger, Raphael knew he was delirious.

He kept his post in front of the couch, knelt down in front of his distressed brother, who was at present grappling with his inability to find the words to express the gravity of his cause. The longer he jumbled his words, the more frustrated and frantic he became, tears to freely flowing down his face praying Raphael would heed him.

“ _…keep them…away…please…”_

“Who, Don?” He was prepared to fight off imaginary enemies if it made Donnie feel better, but he only grabbed Raph’s shoulders and pulled until they locked eyes. There was a shaky heaviness to everything he said, and Raph assumed that if there were a time to take him seriously, Don was as focused as he could be at the moment.

“ _Don’t let me hurt them. Just please…don’t let me…hurt them…”_

His grave message resonated, and once more some awful realization clicked into place around him that made him question why the memories hadn’t been content to mind their own business and stay in the past like they were meant to without resurfacing while Donatello was virtually defenseless. Why they pursued him even in sleep and sickness when he had suffered enough for three lifetimes already before that stupid scar on his leg ever appeared-

Even if he had the answers, he couldn’t afford to dwell on them tonight. It was already weird enough seeing Donnie fail so miserably to articulate his thoughts when that was usually his department. He always considered himself a turtle of action anyways.

“…I won’t.” Having secured his word, Donatello seemed placated enough to release him.

Leo and Mikey would have to wait, then. They’d probably be back soon anyhow. Best thing for him to do was to try and get Don to sleep again before they overwhelmed him…He steadied himself before he stood, picking up the discarded blanket from the floor. Don silently studied him as he placed it back over him, but he said nothing. Raphael regarded the fallen washcloth with chagrin; he’d probably have to replace it, but he didn’t know if leaving Donatello alone was a good idea-

“…Raph…?” His gaze was still unfocused, he whispered almost like he were afraid of the answer. Raphael let the washcloth fall again, returning to his brother’s side like he had never left in the first place. Don rubbed his eyes as if to clear them, but they remained unmistakably damp, and he remained cautiously skeptical.

Raph tried to just clear his mind of the nonessential, and gave him a fond smile. He still wasn’t lucid, but he relaxed a little; at least Don seemed to understand that he was safe. Much of his resolve fell to another coughing fit, and he collapsed back against the cushions of the couch with a languid whine. Raphael almost laughed, he’d never imagine such a sound to have come from him, but another labored sniffle caused him to reconsider.

Instead, he wound an arm underneath him and drew him in again, supporting Don so that he could rest against him. Thankfully, Donnie didn’t fight him on it, even though he was sure neither of them would hear the end of it the very second things went back to normal, should they be discovered. Right now he was willing to let it go if it meant that those times would come sooner rather than later.

“ _I-I’m sorry…I’m s-sorry-”_ Donatello hiccupped, but Raph hushed him before he could spiral away again.

“Breathe, Donnie...it’s over, you can rest now. Everything’s gonna be okay, just…go back to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning. Just rest…”

He carried on that way for a while, certainly longer than just one cup of tea as it were, warding off Don’s feverish thoughts to the best of his ability. There was a certain rhythm to it, and soon he found himself drifting in the lull of his own whispered reassurances deeply enough that he failed to notice that it had been a bit since Don’s last outburst. He had finally dozed off.

His breathing was still congested and…disgusting-Raph would be lucky if he didn’t get sick himself after this, but the serene expression on Don’s flushed face was well worth the risk. With great care, he slowly lowered him back onto the couch and removed himself when he was sure he wouldn’t disturb him. That left him and that stupid washcloth.

He came back with a replacement to find Michelangelo and Leonardo on the floor at the foot of the couch. Mikey smiled and waved in greeting, and Leo just nodded, arms folded. He looked better though, which made him a perfect target.

“Yo, Mr. Medic? Heads up.” Leo caught the cloth without even looking at it, while Mikey looked on in half-lidded amusement.

“…Showoff.” _That_ caught Leo off guard, causing him to snort, and suddenly they were all there grinning like morons at each other. Raph couldn’t lie, it was the best feeling in the world.

Leonardo positioned the new washcloth on Donatello’s forehead tenderly, like it was his way of including him in the joke, and as goofy as it was, the sentiment behind it beckoned him to join his brothers on the floor. He wedged his way between them, gradually enclosing Don’s hand in his once more as it dangled limply off the side of the couch again. Leo regarded him inquisitively for a moment, but Mikey only yawned, setting off a chain reaction that sapped their interest in anything other than the sweet nothingness of sleep, however little. Raph made a note to never underestimate the power of stress again.

Donatello never stirred, and despite everything Raphael felt a bit prideful that for once he was able to make something better instead of worse. It was a small victory, but he allowed himself to revel in it the slightest amount because it meant there was a light at the end of this exceedingly dark tunnel, that they’d push through even if it collapsed on them because that’s just what they did; and if Raph managed to pull Donnie out of the wreckage every now and then while he was at it-well, that just gave him another reason to be vigilant.

Don wouldn’t stay down forever, that wasn’t who he was. There will eventually come a time in the future where he will surely want to reassert his independence, reclaim his space, quell his emotions, because he was his own person and Raphael could never take that away from him. He could only help him get there, and hope they would never let it get to this point again.

But right now, things were so open and comfortable as he laid there clutching one brother’s hand, sandwiched between his two others like some weird lopsided support system as they all held up Donnie on the couch. He would miss this feeling, but at least now he knew where to find it-there was just something about the way they were all together here that made him uncharacteristically optimistic. There was something about Don’s hand in his that was unwavering, like when Raph had first run out of Bishop’s base with both arms firmly around him.

They weren’t losing anyone. As much as Donatello assured him of that in the past, Raphael was content to sit there with him until he remembered that he was that important to them, too. They’d do anything for him the same way Don wore himself out when they needed him. Even sleep on the floor.

He closed his eyes and faintly drifted soon after the unspoken promise was made, feeling lighter than he had felt in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all please take care of yourselves.


End file.
